ASK TONY: Have I really lost £6,000 to a shares scam?

I was contacted in April by a company called Gordon Group Services from New York asking whether I would be interested in selling my 1,210 shares in NXT, now part of HiWave Technologies Group.

I was told a buyer was willing to pay £66,990, less commission. I had to pay a fully refundable bond of £6,897 to their Hong Kong agent Everbright Transfer as a show of good faith.

I checked Gordon Group Services and Everbright on the internet and got plenty of positive hits, so sent the money. By June things had gone ominously quiet.

A stockbroker and the City of London police’s fraud helpline say I am the victim of a scam. Gordon Group has started contacting me again. I should very much like, if possible, to recover the money I have lost. S.C., Surrey.

Your story is not an unfamiliar one.
Boiler rooms have scammed innocent British investors out of millions of
pounds. The name comes from the way they heat up interest in a share
well beyond its actual value.

HiWave Technologies is a legitimate company that makes products such as budget speakers.

But over the past year its shares have
never been worth more than 4.5p each and are now trading intermittently
at around 2.85p, making your holding worth about £34. So once sales
commission is deducted your holding is more or less worthless.

So why would anyone pay £66,990 for
them? Of course you’re not the first to fall for one of these scams and
I’m sure you won’t be the last.

More...

Anyone who is contacted by a
stockbroker out of the blue should put the phone down. Legitimate firms
do not phone up people touting for business.

I passed your case to City watchdog
the Financial Services Authority, which confirmed Gordon Group Services
is on its warning list.

Other firms it says readers should be aware of
include Everbright Transfer, Easton Corporate Finance, Weinberg Equity
Management and Seagram Services.

You can find others at this website: www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/ Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.

If you are in any doubt at all about a financial firm, then contact the FSA’s consumer helpline on 0845 606 1234.

As for your money, I’m afraid you have
almost certainly seen the last of it. And please, anyone reading this,
always remember that well-worn financial adage: if something looks too
good to be true, that’s because it is.

Also, never rely on positive internet comments, as they can easily be forged by the companies themselves.

I closed
my National Savings Investment Account at the beginning of December, as I
did not like the fact I could not run this account through the Post
Office any more.

I
paid the £5,079.16 into my Yorkshire Bank account, but the bank told me
it had been returned ‘unpaid’. A month later I am still waiting for my
money.J.P., Oldham.

NS&I says more than 1,000 cheques were sent out with wrong information on them, so they couldn’t be cashed in at a bank.

Replacements should now have been sent.

Last month, Scottish Equitable told me my annual pension income will be reduced from £4,824 to £2,280. What’s happened?D.P., Ayr.

You have an income drawdown pension — where you remain invested in the stock market and take an income.

One of the perils is that incomes
with these types of pension can drop sharply. Rule changes last April
designed to stop people running out of savings have reduced the amount
of income you can take out of your pension each year.

Yields on gilts — or government bonds — which help determine how much income you can take, have also dropped sharply.

Finally, falling stock markets have reduced the value of your pension, forcing you to take out an ever smaller income.

Write to Tony Hazell at Ask Tony,
Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email
asktony@dailymail.co.uk — please include your daytime phone number, postal
address and a separate note addressed to the offending organisation giving it
permission to talk to him. We regret we cannot reply to individual letters.
Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them.
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given.